The minor fall and major lift
by Elixir.BB
Summary: She's always thought that Sherlock Holmes looks like an angel. Which makes Jim, something akin to a demon. It makes sense then, that Molly is their purgatory. At least to her it does. Slightly AU. Molly/Jim and Sherlock/Molly


_**Disclaimer**__: I still own nothing but my twisted ass mind._

_**Summary**__: She's always thought that Sherlock Holmes looks like an angel. Which makes Jim, something akin to a demon. It makes sense then, that Molly is their purgatory. At least to her it does._

_**And another dark one bites the dust. HEED THE WARNINGS: There is little bit of violence, little bit of death, copious amounts of sex, some of it underage and a shit load of dubious stuff. Emotional and mental manipulation. Morally ambiguousness. BAMF!Molly, definitely Gray!Molly. Swearing. I've tried to keep it as clean as possible and some of this stuff is just mentioned but it's rated M for a very good reason. Other than that, give it a try! Hopefully, you'll likeit!**_

_**Also, this ISN'T a continuation of God and His Priests and His Kings. This is a one-shot on its own but with a similar type of vibe to the previously mentioned one-shot. I love you all. So much. Reviews are greatly appreciated and as always any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone. **_

_**Based on the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen but I've been listening to Jeff Buckley's version. Happy readings everyone! Hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

_The minor fall and major lift_

One-shot

_Maybe there's a God above_

_But all I've ever learned from love_

_Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you_

_And it's not a cry that you hear at night_

_It's not somebody who's seen the light_

_It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_ – Leonard Cohen

* * *

She first feels it when she's eleven years old. She's bending over a dead squirrel; mourning its death while searching for ways it died. (She was always such an odd little girl. It made her parents nervous.)

It's a tingling sort of sensation that starts from the base of her spine to her neck and the hair on her skin stands to attention.

She feels electrified.

When she turns around and studies her surroundings with brown eyes, she doesn't see anyone. The woods behind her house are as empty and alone as she always is. So, she shrugs and goes back to studying the dead squirrel.

The feeling doesn't go away and the longer she stays out there, the less she seems to mind it.

Molly Hooper is being watched (but she prefers to think of it as being protected. Even decades later when everything has come and gone and everything has gone to complete and utter_ shit_, she will always think to herself that it was all for protection. Everything _they_ did, _she_ did, _he_ did, it was because in that moment, in every moment, they were protecting each other.)

(This is a lie she tells herself to ease the guilt off her shoulders.)

* * *

Carl Powers is two years older than her and would be incredibly handsome if he weren't such a complete and utter _twat_.

He's a swimmer and popular and well…Molly isn't. She makes a prime target for insults and jeers from her classmates and those older than her. She's the morbid girl fascinated by morbid things and they don't understand it. They can't seem to understand it. It infuriates them that Molly ignores them.

(Her mother tells her it's because Carl likes her and this is the only way he knows how to show it. Molly thinks that is a crock of shit, but she doesn't say that to her mother.)

She probably should say something about the feeling she gets, the feeling that someone is watching her, someone is analyzing her every move. She doesn't say anything, not only because she doesn't know _who_ it is but also because it's her little secret.

Well, hers and her watcher's secret (and this…_this_ is a secret Molly intends to take to the grave.)

* * *

She's thirteen when everything happens in the span of one day and Molly's life is forever changed (not for the better, _never_ for the better.)

She's walking in the hall, books cuddled tightly to her chest and reciting notes in her head for her upcoming test when she collides with strong body and she's sent flying backwards, books falling and her notes scattered in the mass of awkward growing teenage bodies. (She loves school but she bloody hates her classmates.) The force with which she meets the floor makes her wince and she lets out a sharp cry. A little bit from the pain, a little bit from the shock of flying and then falling but the majority of it is from the utter humiliation of having her uniform skirt bunch high on her thighs and flashing her assailant and the rest of his _merry band of idiots_ her sky blue panties with roses.

Carl Powers takes notice of this with glee and he makes sure to announce it to the hall.

Molly's face grows red with his taunts and she clenches her fists so hard, she can feel her blunt nails dig into the palms of her hands. She's controlling the urge to snap at him and all she wants to do, all she envisions doing is clawing Carl's face off but she takes deep steady breaths.

Carl eventually gets bored with her unresponsive nature and turns to leave. "James, you coming mate? Coach wants us on the bus in five."

"I'm sure I can manage my own way to the bus."

Molly's head snaps up at the voice and she feels as if the breath is being taken from her body. The boy leaning against the locker, looking bored with his surroundings, is studying his nails and he flashes Carl and the rest of the guys a charming smile (Molly can see past the smile, Molly will _always_ see past the smile.)

Carl pauses and then looks from Molly to James, and then he snickers. "Didn't know you liked `em that young, Jamie."

James' eyes harden and he stands up straighter. Molly's breath gets caught in her throat and she can only imagine that Carl is taking a step back. "Are you _laughing _at me, Carl?"

"`Course not." He stammers.

"It wouldn't be wise for you to laugh at me, especially not today, Carl." He says this softly, so that only Molly and Carl can hear him. He sighs. "leave Carl, your presence is no longer needed nor is it wanted."

Without a word, Carl scampers away and Molly is left staring at the boy against the lockers.

James Moriarty.

James_ fucking_ Moriarty.

Everyone knows who he is. He's one of the school's lead swimmers, tied only with Carl. He's intelligent, popular and could charm the pants off of any girl, boy, man and woman he chooses (and if rumors are to believed, he's done just that, in his short fifteen years of existence.) He's Irish and his family is notoriously rich (there are reasons as to how and why the Moriarty's get their money, but Molly doesn't pay attention to rumors.)

He bends down so that he's eye level with her. He doesn't smile at her but he does _look_ at her.

The tingling sensation is back, it starts from the base of her spine to the back of her neck and the hair on her body stands to attention. She feels electrified, just like all the other times and it comes on so quickly, Molly lets out a small breathy gasp. He smirks then, realizing that she knows.

"He'll get what's coming to him." He tells her in his Irish lilt.

"Why?" She asks him. She has a feeling in the pit of her stomach of what he's going to do, of what's going to happen today but she doesn't say anything (Molly will never say anything.)

"I've been watching you for a long time, Molly. You're quite fascinating, did you know that?" She doesn't believe him. "I don't share, Molly. And Carl, he'd make me share and I can't let that happen." He grabs her hand yanks her up so that she's eye level with his chest. "Besides, the disrespect he shows me…laughing at me. How horrendous of him." He glances at his watch and grins. "Time to go…it's all beginning now, isn't it wonderful?"

He leaves her in the hall, a skip in his step and whistling a familiar tune.

(Later that night, Molly will recognize the familiar tune as the funeral march.)

* * *

"Oh, Molly." Her mother barges into her room, tears in her eyes and hand on her mouth. "It's horrible. Just horrible."

"Mum?" Molly questions, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "What is it? What's wrong? Is it dad?"

"It's Carl Powers, he's _dead_!" Her mother wails.

Her mother takes her unresponsiveness as shock.

Molly isn't surprised. After all, she knew what would happen before it actually happened.

* * *

When her mother leaves her room and she hears her mother and father's snores from down the hall, Molly changes her clothes, slips on her trainers, opens her window and climbs down the side of her house.

She makes her way through the small town (Molly hates it with the deepest of passions) and notices signs of mourning already. She walks steadily to where she knows he lives and stands in front of the giant door. She_ should_ turn away and leave. It would be the smart thing to do. She shouldn't have even left her house.

She's about to turn away when suddenly she hears someone softly clacking their tongue in a mocking _tut-tut-tut_. "And here I had such high hopes for you." His voice cuts through the stillness of the dark night. Molly looks up and sees James leaning out the window of his bedroom. "You're no different than the rest of them. All so boring." He leaves her view.

Her mind is telling her to _run, no good can come from this, Molly. Leave. Leave now._ Her body betrays her and she scales the side of his house with ease and when she climbs inside the window and lands on the carpet of his bedroom, she says, in between deep breaths, "You killed Carl Powers."

He's lounging on his bed, hands clasped behind his head. He turns to look at her and he grins. "Yes, I did. You should have been there. It was _glorious_."

"Why?" She demands to know.

"Because I saw you first."

"What if I told the police?"

He doesn't look scared, if anything he looks amused. "You won't. Because you _owe_ me and I _own_ you. It's all part of the game, Molly. Want to play?"

"I don't have a choice, do I, James?"

"Oh, Molly love, call me Jim."

(Decades later, thanks to a certain Consulting Detective; she'll realize that she always had a choice.)

* * *

They go to Carl Powers' funeral together.

They sit in the back and Jim whispers in her ear how he killed Carl.

(She should feel bad. She should feel guilty. She should feel shamed. Instead, she feels nothing, just curiosity for how he managed to do it and get away with it.)

* * *

"I've got plans." He tells her.

"I know you do." She responds.

"Don't you want to hear what they are?" If she didn't know him any better, she'd think that he sounds almost wounded, hurt.

"No, Jim, I really_ really_ don't." This way, at least she has plausible deniability on her side.

* * *

She's young…much to young to always be with a boy two years older than her, but he's Jim and he's charming.

Molly can see the appeal and if she didn't know what he is actually capable of doing, she'd probably be in line along with the rest of the people, swooning over him.

(But Molly _knows_ what he's capable of doing and if anything, she's perhaps falling the hardest of them all. It makes her sick to her stomach but she's never felt so alive.)

* * *

Things begin to unravel the day of Carl Powers' three-year memorial.

She opts not to go and her parents pretend to understand why.

She isn't surprised to see Jim being escorted to her bedroom by her mother. (Her mother adores Jim and is overjoyed that Molly finally has a friend. Molly thinks her mother would _die_ if she finds out who Jim really is and that he's much more morbid than Molly ever was.) He looks sad and tired, but Molly knows that's a mask, he's a fantastic actor and if being a complete and utter murdering psycho doesn't work out (_Consulting Criminal_, Jim corrects her, _Consulting Criminal, get it right, Molly love_) then he should definitely try acting (she can just see him on stage, playing MacBeth or Iago – no, he'd never settle for a supporting role.)

"I just didn't want to be alone. It's incredibly hard. He was my best friend."

"Oh, you poor poor thing." Her mother croons, "stay with Molly as long as you need to. We shouldn't be long. Hour and a half at the most."

Her mother leaves and it isn't until her parents are out the door that he relaxes his face and starts laughing. He paces the length of her room and talks. Most of the time, Molly tries to listen but more often than not, she'll just continue on with her work. He'll calm down sooner than later and lately he's taken to tracing his fingers over her face, as if he's trying to memorize the contours of her face.

There are times when he looks at her and Molly thinks he's going to kiss her. Her breath hitches and she waits patiently (because for as much as she hates him sometimes, she loves him just as much) but nothing happens. The moment is _always _gone and she's left feeling aches in parts of her she didn't know existed.

"Are you ever going to kiss me?" She blurts out. She flushes but refuses to take her eyes off him. She can tell that she's surprised him with her question because his shoulders tense and fists clench. "If not, tell me, because then I can kiss someone-" She's cut off and all she remembers is Jim lunging at her, hands grasping her waist tightly and slamming her against the desk in her room. The desk shakes with force and Molly cries out in shock and pain of the wood digging into the base of her spine.

He presses his mouth against hers in a bruising kiss, his nails digging into her hips. He's biting her and pushing his tongue into her mouth and it takes a second for Molly to realize what's happening and then she reacts. She kisses him just as fiercely. She's sixteen and still a virgin but Molly has always been a quick learner, she reads a lot and watches loads of movies and really, kissing is all mechanics isn't it?

She's whimpering and the need builds in her body. Her hands wrap around his neck and pull him tighter against her. She breaks away, eyes wide and chest heaving when she feels something hard poke her stomach.

He rests his forehead against hers, "see what you do to me, Molly?_ See_?"

He starts muttering again and Molly catches snippets, things like _gonna wait and not some sort of sick fuck, well okay, maybe I am _and she feels like her heart is going to burst. It's not that he didn't _want_ to kiss her but that he couldn't _control_ himself if he did.

(That little bit of knowledge makes her feel powerful and she wonders if this is how he feels when he kills someone.)

She sits on the desk more fully, legs swinging. She's still staring at the erection straining against his trousers and she knows from the school nurse and her mother that it's not very comfortable for him. "Aren't you going to take care of that?"

His face morphs into a smirk. "My oh my, little Molly is a voyeur." His hand unzips his trousers and he slips his hand into his pants.

They don't say anything. Molly is looking at him, legs spreading on their own with every move of his hand and he's grunting and growling. The air is thick with the smell of _something_ and Molly is transfixed when her hand reaches out, on its own accord and slips into his pants, to cover his.

His eyes snap up towards her and his hips pump faster. He bends his neck to the crook of her neck and Molly wraps her legs around his waist, trapping both their hands between them. He kisses, sucks and bites her neck, only tearing his mouth away when he lets out a growl (it's closer to a howl) and he thrusts once before he shudders.

"Cheeky little minx," he rasps, "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

(All that's running through Molly's head is how glorious he looks falling apart.)

(Molly spends the next few decades thinking up ways to make him fall but in the end, it's not even her idea, it's his.)

* * *

Mary Morstan moved to their little town a couple months after Carl Powers died. She and Molly became quick friends. Born and raised in London, Mary often makes the trip by train back to London to visit friends. On Molly's seventeenth birthday, Mary invites her.

"It'll be my present to you!" Mary giggles.

Molly's parents agree and soon, Molly and Mary are walking throughout London. Molly falls in love with it instantly. "…and there," Mary points to an old but stunningly beautiful hospital, "is Bart's hospital. It's one of, if not the, oldest hospital in London. My dad works there. Wouldn't leave London from some country side, can't say I blame, no offense."

"None taken." Molly replies, her eyes fixed on Bart's.

"I'm going to work there one day too." Mary proclaims. She hooks her elbow with Molly. "You should too. We can both study there, you in Pathology and me in Cardiology. Oh _drats_, we've got to hurry if we're going to get ready."

* * *

One of Mary's friends knows of a party in the woods, fifteen minutes outside of London.

It's unlike anything Molly has ever seen and experienced before. The music is loud and Molly can feel it echo throughout her body. She moves hesitantly to the rhythm until she's lost in the music and the bodies and to the freedom of being away from her shitty town and her parents and _Jim_.

She opens her eyes (when had she closed them?) and is shocked to see blue eyes peering down at her. They're clouded over (not that Molly can judge, she's a bit tipsy herself) in a haze, the eyes belong to a tall boy, he really only looks two years older than her, with black wild curly hair and strong facial features. _He's beautiful_, she thinks. _Like an angel._

Molly doesn't know how it happens, but one minute she's in a crowd of people and the next she's backed up against a tree, her body trapped under a guy she just met and _doesn't even know his name_.

The entire situation is incredibly fucked up, but Molly can't stop it. Doesn't want to stop it. He's just a desperate and inexperienced as she is and Molly knows, in her heart of hearts that this guy (boy, man) doesn't mean her any harm. He's not like Jim (no one is like Jim.) She knows, _somehow_, that he's _different_, not just from Jim but from everyone.

There's the ripping of a condom and then pain. She gasps and pants and he grunts and suddenly he's moving in her and she feels high. She feels like she's flying. "Oh. Oh. Please, God." She moans into his neck, pressing their bodies closer together.

Neither last very long but she shrieks when her orgasm slams into her and he steadies both them when he pumps his hips erratically and then tilts his head back when he follows mere seconds afterwards.

It's messy and she has blood streaming down her legs and she aches uncomfortably.

They're cleaning themselves up and Molly steadies herself with a hand against the tree that they just decimated. She's righting her panties and dress and he's zipping up his trousers. "I'm Molly." She says belatedly. _You probably should have told him your name before you let him fuck the virginity out of you against a tree you bloody slag_, her mind taunts her (the voice inside her head sounds like Jim and she hates it.)

He pauses, hands on his zipper. "Sherlock Holmes."

His baritone voice sends a shiver down her spine and then he's gone before she can say anything else.

_Well, what were you going to say? Fancy a cup of coffee?_

(This is the first time she meets Sherlock Holmes and she doesn't know it yet, but it won't be the last.)

Molly also doesn't know that this is the beginning of the end. But then again, Molly doesn't know a lot of things.

* * *

When she and Mary get back to town later the next afternoon, her parents ask her how she enjoyed London.

She tells them that she plans on moving there and that she loves it.

She wonders if they can tell that she let a stranger with an even stranger name shag her against a tree. They don't say anything and neither does Molly.

They go out to some party a week later and Jim comes over (he's on break from Uni) and he walks into her bedroom. He takes one look at her, eyes growing hard and he yanks her up, pressing her to him. She struggles against him. "Who was he?" He snarls. His face is growing red and he's _infuriated_.

"None of your business." She snaps.

"_You're my business_." He hisses. He presses her against the desk and Molly is reminded of _that_ night. She feels heat pool in her panties. He slams his mouth against hers and just like that other night, Molly melts.

(Their relationship is very fucked up. She sometimes hates him but she can't let go of him. He's her drug of choice.)

It's not how it was like with Sherlock. Jim is more experienced. His hands, fingers and mouth, bring her closer to the precipice only to take it away from her at the last minute. And when he finally does enter her, it's in one fluid motion. Pressing deep within her. He moves harshly though. He's quick to bruise her from where his hands on to her just a bit too tightly.

"His name." He growls against her ear, his cock slipping in and out of her. "Tell me his name, Molly."

"No."

It goes on like this, until finally, Molly can feel her orgasm building and when his fingers trail down her stomach and rub at her core, everything becomes too much.

"Tell me."

She opens her mouth, her intent to groan out Jim's name but instead a different name comes out, one that she practically screams until she's hoarse. "Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes." She repeats the name like it's a prayer.

Jim joins her, a few thrusts later. He's still inside of her, softening, "Sherlock Holmes" he repeats, "how _interesting_. You belong to me. You're_ mine_. Say it, Molly. _Say it_."

She can't, at least not really…because for as long as she's known Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes had her first.

(Looking back, Molly wonders how different things would have been if she just had said the words Jim wanted-_needed_-to hear.)

* * *

"I'm going to leave for a bit." He tells her, pulling on his trousers.

"Where are you going?" Translation: _take me with you, take me anywhere other than here. _

"Around. I'm a building a network."

She nods in understanding. "Your criminal network." She's heard about this, ever since he killed Carl. How he's going to build a network that spans across the world and how he's going to burn this world to the ground and then rebuild it. How his name will be whispered and feared by everyone who utters it. (_I'm going to be king_, he tells her over and over again, _and you Molly love, you're going to be my queen.)_

He kisses her roughly, biting her lip until she bleeds. He's marking her, branding her_ his_. "It's just the two of us, Molly. We're the only ones that understand each other."

"Goodbye Jim."

He leaves and Molly has never felt so empty in her life.

(This terrifies her.)

* * *

She makes it to Uni with Mary. They're both in London, like they planned. They've opted to live in a flat with two other girls, Audrey and Lily. Everything is going well.

Everything is going great.

(She never hears from Jim but she does receive little trinkets in the mail from places around the world. It's his way of letting her know that he's alive. She collects them in a box and hides them under her bed. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, when she can't sleep and all she can think about is Jim, she'll grab the box and sift through the trinkets, trying to gage where he's been.)

She thinks about Sherlock Holmes a lot too. She wonders _where he is. _Wonders_ who else he's been with. If he's done with school, does he work? Is he still taking drugs? Is he dead?_

She pushes thoughts of Jim and Sherlock away from her mind and concentrates on chemistry. It's the only thing that makes sense to her.

* * *

A few weeks later, she walks into her chemistry lab and stops dead in her tracks. There's a familiar figure sitting rigidly next to the stool she usually occupies. She recognizes him from the wild black curls and when he turns his head, she can feel her heart race. He's still so fucking beautiful. He looks like he's made of marble.

(The thought of ever seeing him again never crossed her mind. The odds were slim to none…she would know, she calculated it.)

"Oh." She says, "it's you."

He raises his eyebrows. "I wasn't aware we met."

Her heart sinks to her stomach. "No." She says quietly, "I don't suppose we have."

(Her hope along with her pride vanishes. It's odd how Sherlock manages to reduce her to a complete and utter mess and how Jim always managed to build her up.)

* * *

Sherlock Holmes is nothing and everything like she thought he'd be.

He's intelligent. So intelligent, it hurts. He's well bred, charismatic when he wants to be (which is really only when he needs something) and bored with everything around him. (He reminds her of Jim _so much_, she almost fears that they share the same brain sometimes.)

He's also a prat. He's mean. He's rude. He doesn't care about people's feelings. He'll ridicule someone and bring them to tears and he'll be _genuinely confused_ when they run off in said tears.

He's also high. _All the time_.

Frankly, it pisses Molly off, partly because she's left with the lab homework (she's his partner in chemistry and biology and Renaissance history-whenever it calls for partners-because no one else can stand to be around him for more than seventeen seconds. Molly should know, she calculated) but mostly because she actually cares for the jerk.

They're well into their second semester of their first year (he's a year and a half older but he dropped out before and none of his credits counted, mainly because he never attended classes…for a genius, he's incredibly lazy) and she's studying statistics, her roommates are gone and for once the flat is quiet.

Until, a loud obnoxious knock echoes through the flat. She sighs and glances at the clock that says its close to midnight. A dazed and very high Sherlock collapses onto her as soon as she opens the door. "Take him." A boy with dark hair (_Victor_, she remembers him doing the walk of shame a few months back, from Lily's room) "he's bloody well driving us mad and everyone on campus knows you're the _Sherlock Whisperer_."

"I am not." Molly argues.

"Good luck," another boy mutters "and may God have mercy on your soul."

Victor smiles apologetically at her and closes the door before leaving.

"Molly." Sherlock slurs, "it's Molly. How'd I get here?"

"Sherlock." Molly says softly, she's bit worried at his paleness and the fact that he's sweating so much. "What did you take?"

"Everything." He tells her. "I took everything. I_ take_ everything."

She puts him on the couch and whips up a cocktail that she knows will induce vomit (it's a trick Jim taught her, it's the_ only_ thing he taught her that didn't relate to death and murder.)

She practically forces it down his throat. She's dragging him to the bathroom and places him before the toilet once everything comes back up.

She settles down next to him and soothes his wild curls while he retches into the toilet.

* * *

He's stopped vomiting an hour ago, but Molly doesn't move him from the bathroom, just in case anything decides to come back up.

"Why do you do this?" She asks him. For someone as brilliant as he is, she wants to know what makes him turn to drugs. What makes him want to overdose?

"Because I can." He says haughtily.

It's something Jim would say and she kicks Sherlock in the legs. "That's not an answer." She snaps. "Why? Why are you hell-bent on dying all the time? Why are you such a fucking prick to everyone who tries to befriend you? Why don't you…" _remember me?_ She trails off before she finishes the last two words.

"They help me turn everything off. Everything is silent. I'm silent."

"You're sick." She tells him. "Sherlock, you're addicted to drugs and you need to go to rehab."

He snorts, "You sound like my brother."

"Yeah, well, you're brother may have a point." She shakes her head, "after tonight, I'm done with you. You can be someone else's problem. I already have to deal with_ one_ needy man, I'm not dealing with another." She freezes and then walks out of the bathroom and into her room. He doesn't call her back in to demand to know who the other needy man is and she's hoping that he's still so drugged that it just goes over his head.

(She hears the front door open and close a couple hours later. He's gone when she wakes up in the morning.)

* * *

"Do you know who I am, Miss Hooper?" The man with the umbrella asks her.

She shakes her head wildly. For one moment, she's terrified that an enemy of Jim's has found her and she curses the day Jim ever laid eyes on her and the day she thought it would be a good idea to throw caution to the wind and be his…_something_. "No."

"My name is Mycroft Holmes."

She lets out a breath of relief. "Where's Sherlock?" is her next question. He hasn't been in class and he's not answering her calls or her messages. Even though she told him that she was done with him, she's not. Not really. Not _ever._

"Rehab…tell me, what did you say to my brother to make him enter rehab?"

"Nothing." She tells him. She knows enough about Sherlock to know that he hates showing his weakness to his brother and Molly most certainly isn't adding any fuel to the fire. "Nothing at all."

He offers her money to spy on his brother. Molly laughs in his face. "No. Are we done now?" She's getting fidgety and she's becoming uncomfortable with the way the elder Holmes brother is staring at her. He nods and she shoots out of her chair.

"Miss Hooper?" He calls out, his voice echoing throughout the warehouse. "Tell me, what does the name James Moriarty, mean to you?"

"Nothing." She answers, wincing when she croaks. "Nothing at all."

(Only everything.)

* * *

It's almost as if he knew he was being talked about, she muses, when she enters her bedroom and sees him lounging on her bed.

He grins like the Cheshire cat. "You trade one freak in for another. But this one's got a substance abuse problem. My oh my, Molly, you love lost causes, don't you?"

"What do you need?" She asks tiredly. She toes off her shoes and begins to strip from her clothes and into an oversized sweater.

He doesn't take his eyes off of her. "You."

* * *

When he finally slips into her that night after teasing her until she finally gives in and begs, it strangely feels like _coming home_.

(This thought terrifies her but doesn't surprise her because despite everything, Jim Moriarty, has _always_ been home to Molly Hooper.)

* * *

"I've met someone." He tells her as he's pulling on his trousers.

Molly is getting a weird sense of déjà vu but that doesn't stop her from the jealously that suddenly overwhelms her entire body. "Really?" She pretends to be disinterested.

He doesn't buy it. He chuckles. It's a low chuckle that almost makes him seem normal. "Don't be jealous, Molly love. He's my second-in-command. You two should meet each other. You'd love each other."

(Molly doesn't meet Sebastian Moran until the day she kills him.)

* * *

Three months after Jim made a sudden reappearance and just as quick disappearance, there is a knock on her bedroom door at four o'clock in the afternoon. She's in the middle of studying for her exams and she figures it's Mary, panicking over not knowing something. "Come in." She calls out.

The door opens and it's the heavy footsteps that make her turn around. She loses her voice. All coherent thought is gone because Sherlock Holmes is standing in her bedroom. He looks better than he did the night he almost overdosed but _tired._ It's the first time, she's ever seen him so worn down and weary. "Oh." She breathes. "It's you."

She launches out of her chair and wraps her arms around him and she practically sobs when she feels his arms wrap around her waist.

* * *

They're lying in her bed, she's propped up on her side, watching him sleep. He was exhausted and she told him that he could have her bed because she's still got a few hours of studying before she can sleep.

The moment his head hits her pillow, he's out like a light. As promised, a few hours later, she crawls into bed next to him.

"I do remember you." He tells her softly, his eyes are still closed and his mouth barely moves but she hears him clearly.

"What?"

"That night. The woods. Sex." His eyes open at the word and she's entranced in him. "I do remember you."

"Then did you say you didn't?" She asks him, remembering that day she saw him again in chemistry class.

"Because I am me and you're you. In the end, I break everyone."

She wants to tell him that she's already broken. She's been broken for quite some time, but she doesn't. Instead, she leans down and presses her lips gently to his. "Don't protect me. I can protect myself."

She can feel his lips turn upwards and they both drift off to sleep, bodies succumbing to exhaustion.

* * *

She continues to go through school and it's in her third year when Sherlock drops out. It's not what he wants to do. He hates academia. He wants to be a Consulting Detective.

Molly is supportive.

They've come to an unspoken understanding that they're both too important in the other's life to let the other one go and she realizes that sentiment isn't just something Sherlock hates but something he's terrified by, so she puts her hopes and dreams of ever being anything more with him on hold, and promises to be a good friend (even though he really does make it difficult for her.)

She doesn't see him as much as she would like, but he does send her messages to let her know that he's still alive.

It's during this year that her dad gets sick. He breaks her heart when he dies.

Molly goes home for the funeral and as everyone crowds into her house to offer their condolences, she makes her way up to her bedroom. She pushes the door open and she's suddenly transfixed with memories that assault her.

She's so busy thinking about long lost memories; she doesn't notice the other person until he clears his throat.

Jim is standing in her doorway, dressed in black trousers and a black shirt with shiny black shoes. To anyone else, he looks impeccable, to Molly, she knows he's uncomfortable.

She opens her mouth to say something, _anything_, but all that comes out is a choked sob and she falls back onto her stripped down and bare bed and begins to cry.

He doesn't offer any false sympathies or any comfort. Instead, he just stands in her doorway and watches her sob.

(It's the only thing that she's ever imagined him doing. The fact that he's here at all, speaks volumes to everything she doesn't let herself think.)

* * *

She gets into medical school.

Mary doesn't.

(Everything starts changing from there.)

* * *

Medical school is as demanding as she thought it would be but Molly relishes in it.

She's got her heart set on Pathology because she's a morbid girl fascinated by morbid things and she'd rather work on the dead than work on the living.

She manages to get a spot at Bart's to Mary's glee as well as Molly's surprise.

(Mary is still one hundred per cent supportive and she's studying to apply again the next year.)

Although, she's not as surprised, when on her first day, she catches a glimpse of a tall man with black wild curls sitting in the lab.

He turns around when she comes in. "Bart's is the best. You should be trained at the best."

It's the nicest thing Sherlock Holmes has ever done for her.

"Also, I need access to body part's and what better than to have my own Pathologist." And then he opens his mouth and says things like_ that_.

* * *

Her mentor, Doctor Saunier, hates Sherlock with a passion.

Molly finds it hilarious.

Sherlock gives her traitorous wounded looks.

This makes Molly laugh harder.

* * *

The day Molly graduates medical school, in the top three percent of her class, two things happen that effectively change her life (again.)

She's walking into her flat, intent on showering and the changing to celebrate with friends. This plan disappears when she sees Jim holding his side with blood oozing out of it at an alarming rate. She's still for all of a second before she realizes that_ Jim is standing in the middle of her flat bleeding to death_.

"It's okay." She says, "It's okay. You're going to be okay. What the _fuck_ happened?"

"It's complete." He hisses out. "My network. It's complete."

"Then you should be celebrating instead of having me do a shit patching job with sewing thread and a needle. Oh God. Fuck. Jim."

There's no more talking, just hissing and drawn out groans of pain as she stitches him up as best as she can. When she's done, her hands are bloody, her flat is bloody and Jim is bloody. "You can't die." She tells him. "You can't."

"Don't tell me you're going to confess you're undying love for me." He opens one eye and smirks.

"I don't love you."

"I don't love you either."

(Sometimes, they love each other a little too much.)

* * *

Despite her wishes, Jim staggers up an hour later and gets into an awaiting car. Molly scrubs her hands and then scrubs her flat and then messages her friends saying that she's not feeling well.

She changes into different clothes and grabs a cab, shooting off an address.

She knocks on the door and an older lady answers it. "Who are you?"

"Molly Hooper, ma'am." She says politely. Her heart is beating against her chest.

"Oh! _You're_ Molly. My, Sherlock never told me you were beautiful. Come in, come in. He's upstairs. Dear, really, stop giving him body parts. The smell is awful. You can call me Martha, by the way."

Molly bounds up the stairs with a promise to stop by for tea sometime and comes to a stop in the living room.

Sherlock is standing by the window, playing his violin. He stops when he sees her. He turns around, his eyes flitting over her and she wonders what he's deducing about her. And then she remembers Jim and his blood on her hands and she doesn't want Sherlock to know about Jim.

She breathes in deeply as she crosses the floor over to him and pulls his head down for a kiss.

It's awkward and exhilarating at the same time.

* * *

He takes his time with her. Brings her off with his skilled fingers and his mouth does things to her that makes her eyes roll in the back of her head but all she wants is him.

He feels different than Jim, he's longer and a bit thicker but he grips her hips just as tightly and kisses her throat and thumbs her nipples.

"Sherlock." She breathes over and over again, repeating his name until Jim is just a long distant memory and she's reduced to a sobbing mess in a haze of heightened pleasure.

(Jim feels like coming home, Sherlock feels something entirely different. He feels like…building a new one.)

* * *

It's easy to fall in love with Sherlock.

It's not always easy_ staying_ in love with him.

But Molly loves a challenge.

And she _really_ loves Sherlock Holmes.

(This thought terrifies her more than she admits.)

* * *

It's been years and she's changed addresses but she figures that wouldn't stop him from finding her.

He's sitting in her bedroom, waiting for her to come home from a long shift (it's made even longer by the introduction of John Watson. She's never hated Mike Stamford so much.)

"Miss me, Molly?" He asks.

"No." _Yes_.

"I'm going to take Sherlock Holmes down."

Her heart stops. "Why?" _What has Sherlock ever done to you?_

His eyes flash and Molly realizes that she's spoken that aloud. "He's taken everything from me. And I've always wanted an equal." That doesn't sting as much as it should. She was never on the same page as Jim. Not that she ever wanted to be. "I'll be the Consulting Criminal to his Consulting Detective. It will be quite entertaining to see what John Watson can bring into the mix, don't you think?"

"Jim," she begs, "please."

"Time for begging is done, Molly love. Everything burns, eventually."

* * *

The year passes by in a flurry of blatant insults and emotional manipulation. It's never been like this before (she's lying, it has been like this before, but never so steadily. Never so often) and she puts it down to Sherlock showing off for John.

Cases are solved. Sherlock has to wear a stupid hat that she thinks is adorable. (He doesn't.)

Then Jim shows up one day at Bart's wearing an I.T. badge.

He corners her in the cafeteria. Introduces himself and they make small talk, just for show. He walks her back to her office, whispering in her ear how _she's going to do this because she owes him and he owns her_.

"You could have just asked." She snaps at him. "I'm not a bloody toy."

"And give you the disillusionment that you have a choice? Come now, Molly love, I don't ask. You know this."

* * *

"Are you gay?" She asks him, when he finds her in the ladies loo after that horrendous introduction with Sherlock. She plays her part quite well and she contemplates throwing up at the thrill that she, _Molly Hooper_, has managed to fool _Sherlock Holmes_. (Jim is turning her into a monster.) "It's all right if you are, I mean."

He looks offended. "Of course I know it's all right."

"So, you are?"

"I'm selective."

"What does that even mean?" She wonders. "Are you bisexual?"

"Molly? Stop talking."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" She teases, as she stands closer to him and stares at their reflections in the mirror. She wonders if she looks hard and long enough, can see the kids they used to be? (Then again, they were never really kids, were they?)

A woman stumbles into the bathroom and blinks at Molly and Jim and then walks back out.

Molly lets out a surprised giggle and then laughs loudly.

Jim is looking at her like she's certifiably insane and the irony is not lost on her.

(All she can do is joke around and laugh with the man who's going to the one she's in love with.)

She's completely and totally fucked.

* * *

Christmas that year is something akin to a nightmare.

The aftermath is even worse.

Irene Adler is dead and Sherlock recognized her by _not-her-face_.

(She never stood a chance. At least with Jim, Molly knows where she stands.)

* * *

She still loves Sherlock Holmes, finds that she probably always will.

It's a heartbreaking realization when she knows that he won't ever love her back.

It makes her infuriated and sad that after everything she's done, after everything they've been through, she's still nothing more than a stepping-stone to him. She's nothing more than a one-stop-shop for all his Pathology related needs. He doesn't see her the way she's always seen him, thought about her the way she's always thought about him. The way she can't seem to_ stop_ thinking about him. (Jim is her drug of choice, but Sherlock is her cure.)

And so, she resolves to let him go but not without letting him know that she sees him. With a soft and gentle confirmation, she lets him know that she knows she doesn't count. And it's _okay_. Really it _is_, because realistically, Molly has never counted to anyone.

(Except maybe-_maybe-_to Jim.)

* * *

"Molly…I think I'm going to die."

She wants to cry because she _knows _that he's going to die and there's nothing she can do.

"What do you need?" If she can grant him on last wish, she will.

"If I wasn't everything you think I am, everything that I think I am…would you still want to help me?"

"What do you need?" She repeats, her heart is in her throat and she feels sick.

"You."

(She's getting a sense of déjà vu and everything she's ever known is slipping from beneath her feet.)

* * *

She's always thought that Sherlock Holmes looks like an angel.

Which makes Jim, something akin to a demon.

It makes sense then, that Molly is their purgatory.

(At least to her it does.)

* * *

Jim has never given her a choice.

Sherlock does.

* * *

That night, she goes home and isn't at all surprised to see Jim in her bedroom. He's sitting on the edge of her bed, hands clasped beneath his chin. In the dark, his silhouette looks exactly like Sherlock's.

"What are you doing here?" She asks wearily as she turns on the light. She frowns at the slight bruise forming on his jaw.

"A gift from Seb." He replies to her unanswered question. "We got into a bit of a fight."

"Lover's spat?" Molly asks as she strips down. Her hands are shaking. Mainly from the fact that she's just come home from a long day at work with an even longer conversation with Sherlock, going through every detail to make sure that he doesn't_ actually_ die, at the hands of the man who is currently sitting on her bed.

"I told him that I wanted you to be the one to kill me."

Her head snaps up at this.

He smiles at her and it looks almost apologetic. "Poetic, wouldn't you agree? But…I can't even have that, so I told him that I'd rather die by my own hand."

"Jim." She says and then trails off. "What's happening?"

"One more night?" He offers, "for old time's sake."

He reaches out and grabs her hand and kisses her knuckles. It's an intimate gesture and she almost-_almost-_tells him right then and there what Sherlock is planning. But she doesn't. Instead, she lets him guide her to her bed.

(They have sex. For old times sake.)

(There is nothing and everything wrong with this.)

* * *

"Molly?"

"What?"

"Make sure _you_ save Seb for last."

* * *

Jim is dead.

She does his autopsy.

She makes it through until she gets to transcribing her notes.

Then she breaks down and sobs.

(She feels as if there is a huge part of her that is missing. It wasn't supposed to end like this. It was _never_ supposed to end like this.)

Then again, Molly never knew _how_ it was supposed to end.

* * *

She gets home and ushers a battered and broken Sherlock Holmes in without being seen. She patches him back together and is reminded of another flat with another man who required her to fix him. (She fixes everyone yet no one fixes her.)

She leaves him on the couch, not wanting to disturb him, as he sleeps off the pain medication.

In a fit of desperation, she grabs at the box of trinkets underneath her bed (despite changing addresses, she's never changed her hiding spot) and opens the lid. She covers her mouth and sobs all over again, holding countless trinkets from every corner of the world.

(She always thought it was his way of letting her know he was alive. She never_ once_ thought it was his way to let her know that he was always thinking of her.)

* * *

"You'll be careful, won't you?" She asks him.

Sherlock's response is to nod, blue eyes seeking out hers.

She closes the distance between them and presses her lips softly to his. "Because I can't lose you."

* * *

When he comes back to see her, he wraps himself around her body, _in_ her body and she yearns for him. Aches for him.

People are mourning him.

Molly is rejoicing in him.

* * *

Almost three years later, Molly finally meets Sebastian Moran. (Mycroft Holmes calls her and tells her what's happening and then he tells her, _he's the last one, Miss Hooper. I don't care how but just kill him._ This leads her to wonder just how much of a conversation Jim had with Mycroft before he died.)

He's holding John hostage and Sherlock is there.

John's eyes are furious when he sees Sherlock is alive and_ not_ dead.

Sebastian Moran is raging and pointing his gun at John. He's crying and Molly almost feels bad for the man, because he loved Jim _almost_ as she did (but then, the two of them always did manage to get love and hate confused.)

He points the gun at Sherlock and Molly doesn't hesitate pulling the trigger. (She's been practicing and she's gotten quite good. She's learned that she can't ever be too careful.) It hits him right in the head and just for good measure; she shoots him in the heart.

Sherlock whips around to spot her but she's already gone, blood pumping through her veins and heart beating loudly. She just killed a man and she can't help but whistling a familiar tune as she dumps her gun into the Thames and makes her way back to her flat.

(It's only when she's a block away Molly will recognize the familiar tune as the funeral march.)

* * *

It's late by the time she gets to her flat. Her nerves are shot. Her body is tingling. She feels like she's on fire.

It should, but somehow it doesn't surprise her, to find her flat already occupied when she gets in. "Sherlock?" She questions the man standing by the window.

"When did you learn to shoot a gun?"

"Almost three years ago." She answers him truthfully.

"Why?"

She takes a deep breath, "because Jim Moriarty asked me to."

There is silence and then all she feels is herself being slammed back against the wall and Sherlock is _ravaging_ her mouth. It's not at all like how it was before. Gone is the awkwardness (probably due to the fact that she's been having sex with him for almost three years) and in its place is an animalistic sort of desperation.

"It's done." She moans. "You're _back_."

He pushes her backwards to her room and tears off her clothes. She's desperate to get her hands on his skin and when she finally does, she runs her hands over him, cataloguing every bruise and broken bone that healed itself.

There is no foreplay, just him and her. Sherlock and Molly.

He attaches his lips to hers and he swallows her cries and moans and pleas for more. He answers her prayers for more. Her neighbors hate her, she knows they do, but she doesn't care.

They orgasm almost simultaneously and he slumps against her. He's panting in her ear and she's holding him tightly.

"For the sake of law and order, I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly."

Her heart clenches. "Present company excluded?"

"That's a bit obvious, even for you, don't you think?"

Molly laughs until one of her neighbors pounds against the wall and tells her to_ shut the fuck up. _

(They have sex again, this time slower, a bit gentler, but just as desperate.)

* * *

"Molly?" Sherlock asks her. It's later and she's propped up on her elbow, she's just finished telling him about her complicated history with Jim and she feels exposed. Jim was a part of her that she kept hidden from everyone.

"Mhmm?"

"What did Moriarty mean to you?"

She pauses and takes a deep breath. "He meant absolutely nothing and everything to me."

* * *

(Somewhere in heaven, _probably hell_, Jim Moriarty is laughing his ass off.)

* * *

_What a doozy. Thank you all for reading it and sticking with it! I hope you all enjoyed it. I'm quite proud of it, probably because it's late and I'm sleep deprived but I don't know…I just like it. Am I the only one? Maybe. _

_Either way, I LOVE YOU ALL. Seriously, you make my life, you make me happy and your support means the world to me. Words cannot describe how much I love you guys. So, I hope you all like it! HUGE SHOUTOUT to everyone who has reviewed and favorited/alerted/kudos/followed my other one-shots and stories. The happiness you guys give me should be illegal. I feel the love and I want every single one of you to know how much love I give back. I'm going to update this on AO3 and add it to Tumblr tomorrow, I promise. I'm beat tired. _

_Seriously though, I've got MAD love and respect for every single one of you. _

_Much love, _

_BB _


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